Imagining Skyscraper Farms

Here’s a nifty idea: Why not combine “beginner’s mind” enthusiasm with hard-earned wisdom and apply the mixture to some of the world’s most fascinating opportunities?

That is essentially what Juliette LaMontagne, an experiential education expert and TED Senior Fellow, is doing with her Breaker Challenges. For each Challenge, LaMontagne plans to assemble a dozen or so super-bright 18-24 year olds, present them with a potentially world-changing idea, then spend three months walking them through a structured design process mentored by industry experts. Stir, shake and see what emerges.

In an ideal world, everyone wins. The participants learn entrepreneurial skills and gain product design experience of the sort impossible to teach in a traditional classroom. The visionaries see their ideas developed into commercially viable products and services ready for early stage investment (indeed, as part of the program, participants must pitch their concepts to members of the venture community). And, not least of all, the world stands to gain insight into some of humanity’s most pressing concerns.

LaMontagne ran the first Breaker Challenge last summer, focusing on using emerging technologies to address the rise of functional illiteracy in the US. Two of the resulting services – Mobo, which uses text messages to tell stories and Unbound, which is attempting to crowd-source a video reference work – are currently being developed further.

The next Challenge, which kicked off last week, is tackling urban agriculture, a radical approach to growing our food inside our cities (think more skyscraper farms than flower box herb gardens, although the project will address both). Urban agriculture has enormous potential: It can theoretically feed far more people in a healthier manner, while simultaneously reducing fossil fuel consumption, but it also faces enormous obstacles (technical, economic, social).

The 13 youthful participants in the urban agriculture Challenge come from a wide range of different disciplines, including architecture, creative writing, economics and public health. LaMontagne has enlisted two visionaries to guide the project, Majora Carter, a MacArthur “genius” fellow and National Public Radio host, who founded Sustainable South Bronx more than a decade ago and Danielle Gould, the CEO of Food+Tech, a "media" company (they blog, provide analysis, and do events among other things) focused “connecting food and tech innovations.”

Over the next 3 months, I will be shadowing and blogging about these bright young things as they visit existing urban agriculture projects in and around New York City, including Gotham Greens and Windowfarms, consult with experts from outfits like Google, Frog Design and AOL’s Qlabs and work hard to develop the next breakthrough in urban agriculture. Check back here often for links to my latest posts.